NGC 6888 nébuleuse du Croissant , Sony A7s 140x30s, 30 flats, 40 darks, 25 offsets, traitement AstroPixelProcessor, Pixinsight, et Photoshop CC, grosse galère car mon A7S souffre de "Banding" et très dur à atténuer.

Taken using iTelescope T09, a luminesence image of complied from 7 300s frames, total intergration time of 35 minutes. Unfortunately the weather changed and the roof was closed before the Red, Green and Blue channels could be taken, another night maybe. The image was processed in AstroPixelProcessor.

Andromeda Galaxy (M31), 08/27/2020

So after I setup the big telescope last weekend I put my old Canon Rebel T5i on my small star tracker and pointed it at the Andromeda Galaxy. I’ve taken better images but they can’t all be winners. I overreached that night trying to do too many things at once. I also setup a time-lapse on yet another camera which I’ll also post soon. With so many things going on I totally forgot to take the calibration frames that were needed for this image. Next time I go out imaging, I’ll limit myself to only one deep-space image and one time-lapse or maybe super wide-angle setup.

Equipment:

Canon T5i

Skywatcher Star Adventure

Tamron 70-200 @ 200mm

Astronomik CLS clip-in filter

Details:

Location – Buck Creek Campground, WA

Bortle Class 3

ISO 3200

58 60-second Lights

0 Darks

0 Bias

0 Flats

Astro Pixel Processor

Lightroom

Photoshop

#astrophotography #astronomy #comos #nightphotography #space #telescope #deepsky #asi294mcpro #amateurastronomy #backyardastronomy #asiair #asiairpro #celestronrasa #celestron #astropixelprocessor #optolong #telescope #astronomyphotography #deepskyobject #zwo #longexposurephotography #m31 #andromedagalaxy

Sharpless 2-12 is a very large nebula. It's full extent sprawls over a vast region and it is therefore best imaged with either a smaller focal length or a camera with a bigger sensor or both

Still this view does reveal some interesting structures. Like many Sharpless objects it doesn't seem to be imaged that often

Total integration :

Three and a half hours in Ha (10 minute subs)

2 hours and 20 minutes in RGB with a OSC

5 minute subs x 24 + one minute subs x 60)

Equipment

Sharpstar Z4

HEQ5

ZWO ASI 533 MM pro

ZWO ASI 533 MC pro

Antlia 3 nm H alpha Filter

ASIAR

Software

ASIAIR

AstropixelProcessor

PixinSight

Photoshop CS6

Processing notes-

Ha and RGBI data processed independently

Stack in AstroPixelProcessor

Graxpert for Gradient Correction in Ha

In this instance I removed light pollution and neutralised background in the RGB stack using AstroPixelProcessor before Gradient Correction in PixInsight. This seemed to provide better results than GC /ADBE or Graxpert in PI by themselves

BlurX (Correct Only)

BlurX non stellar

Starnet++

Nebula

Noise X

GHS

CurvesTransformation

Stars

Setiastro StarStretch script

Stars combined with

PixelMath

HaRGB

Ha and RGB combined using the Marco Lorenzi technique as suggested by Andy Campbell

Short session last night only allowed an hour of integration, but still thought I'd post

Nikon d5300 (unmodded)

WO GT81

SW HEQ5-Pro

60-60" Light frames

15 Darks

captured by asi071mc pro at -10C, gain=100, Sigma 135mm f/1.8 lens at f/2.8, 60s*2.

integration by AstroPixelProcessor.

IC 1848, as known as Soul Nebula, is an emission nebula locatel in the constellation of Cassiopeia; far 7500 years light from the solar system. It conforms a great stars formation region, with visible huge extensions of ionized and excited gas. Soul nebula is integrated by many open star clusters, an intense radio source called W5 and by huge bubbles formed by the intense winds coming from massive young stars. W5 integrates large cavities that were carved out by radiation and winds from the region’s most massive stars, pushing gas together and causing it to ignite into successive generations of new stars. Dense large pillars of material can be seen around the nebula structure, pillars of around 10 light years with stars forming into them.

This image is taken through Ha, SII and OIII filters, and mapped in post-process as a variation of the SHO palette. Because of this, we can see differenciated areas, depending on the signal received. Hydrogen Alpha, Sulfur double ionized or Oxygen triple ionized. The narrowband astrophotography allows us to detect different chemical compositions of the ionized gas emited by the nebulas.

Technical data:

Remote Observatory "FarLightTeam"

Team: Jesús M. Vargas, Bittor Zabalegui,José Esteban, Marc Valero.

Telescope: Takahashi FSQ106 ED 530mm f/5

CCDs: QSI683 wsg8

Filters: Baader Planetarium - Halpha-SII-OIII

Mount: 10Micron GM1000 HPS

Imaging Software: Voyager

Processing Software: PixInsight-AstroPixelProcessor

Captured through 12 December 2021 to 21 February 2022, ( Fregenal de la Sierra ) Badajoz, Spain.

Processing: Marc Valero

Image composed by a Mosaic of 2 tiles:

Ha: 94x1200"

Zoom sur M57 , 30x180s + DOF + traitement AstropixelProcessor + Pixinsight , lunette 120x900 CCD 2600Mc Pro à -10°.

First image for the new season of astro dark here in Scotland, 4 hours of unfiltered OSC data from my back garden in bortle 4 skies, there was a moon but as this target was at 70+ deg elevation the moon did not interfere in any way. The subs were integrated with AstroPixelProcessor and processed in Pixinsight.

The Iris Nebula (also known as NGC 7023 and Caldwell 4) is a faint reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus. The nebula is illuminated by a bright central star designated HD 200775. It lies 1,300 light-years away and is six light-years across.

Integration : No filter : 48×300″ : 4h

16 Aug 2025 ,47% Moon

Imaging equipment

Telescope : William Optics Redcat 61

Camera : ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

Mount : ZWO AM5

Software :

Aries Productions Astro Pixel Processor (APP)

Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight

Russell Croman Astrophotography BlurXTerminator

Russell Croman Astrophotography NoiseXTerminator

Russell Croman Astrophotography StarXTerminator

ZWO ASIAIR

Ioptron CEM 25p

W/O Zenithstar 73 + flattner

ASI 533MC pro

W/O Uniguide 50mm

ASI 120mini

ZWO EFW

Duo Narrowband filter

ASIair pro controlled

19x5min (total time: 1,6h)

Darks + Flats

Post-processed #astropixelprocessor, PS and LR

Hercules Cluster (M13), 05/24/2020

This is the Great Cluster in the Constellation of Hercules. It is about 25,00 light years away. There are hundreds of thousands of stars packed into an area 145 light-years in diameter.

I got to do a little imaging while I was up at my friend’s place. It was one of those nights where nothing was going right or easy. Most likely because we where partying and laughing like fools. Astrophotography and bourbon do not mix well. LOL. In fact, I did not think this image would work at all and I almost did not even bother to process it.

Equipment:

RASA 8

CGEM-dx mount

ZWO ASI294MC-Pro

ZWO Asiair

Details:

Location – Ahsahka, ID

Bortle Class 4

60 60-second Lights

60 Darks

60 Bias

40 Flats

Deep Sky Stacker

Star Tools

Lightroom

Photoshop

#astrophotography #astronomy #comos #nightphotography #space #telescope #deepsky #asi294mcpro #amateurastronomy #backyardastronomy #asiair #rasa #celestron #astropixelprocessor #telescope #astronomyphotography #deepskyobject #zwo #longexposurephotography #m13 #Herculescluster

NGC 7635, known as the Bubble Nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia. A dynamic region of gas and dust in the Milky Way. The circular feature is a bubble blown in the material between the stars by the radiation and wind of energetic particles by one of the bright stars inside the bubble. Composite of multiple exposures totaling 5hr 32min. GSO RC 8" f/10 telescope, ZWO ASI2600MM monochrome cooled CMOS camera, SVBONY H-alpha 7nm filter, Losmandy GM811G mount, ZWO ASIAir Pro controller, auto-guided. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor, Lightroom, Photoshop.

The Horsehead nebula in Hydrogen-alpha

Astrophotography is a complex process combing optics, precise mechanical pointing & tracking, real-time guiding corrections, field derotation, environmental, and sequencing through multiple pieces of equipment that all need to “talk” to each other to automate the 66 exposure frames that were obtained here. Small corrections in focus need to be made as temperatures change, small errors in tracking are corrected using a second telescope and camera that counters the mechanical equipment limitations to keep it at level of seeing that the atmosphere allows.; periodic small adjustments in tracking, called dithering, are made to average out sensor issues that could later be mistaken for signal, then finally calibration frames are taken using a special light panel of perfectly uniform illumination…this is all done remotely and robotically controlled by a computer mounted with the scope communicating with my computer at home. My telescope could be in my backyard or halfway across the world.

After collecting the data frames called “light frames” those 66 44MB images are added together in a process called stacking. This registers, normalizes, calibrates, aligns and adds the data signal while keeping the noise as low as possible, it also normalizes gradients and artifacts due to the optics as well as light pollution. …the final preprocessed image is essentially a uniform blank gray single image about 250GB in size with no stars or nebula visible!

The post processing next takes this image and pulls or stretches the signal from the background noise (dark sky sensor dark current) makes two images: one with the stars removed and one with the stars. Those two are processed separately using different techniques to enhance the extremely dim nebula signal from the noise. Then eliminate more noise and enhance sharpness of the fine details. Finally the two Star field and nebula images are recombined in the single image you see.

Just three decades ago équipement and processing of this level were only available in professional research grade equipment costing millions of dollars. Of late, advances in signal processing software, consumer available astronomy camera grade sensors and computing power have allowed amateur astronomers to rival the best science images of only a decade before. And the cost and relative ease of entry to excellent astrophotography just over the last couple of years has decreased immensely allowing even novice astronomers with zero knowledge to press a couple power buttons and the scope, mount and software can automagically produce images that are really pretty good…all controlled on your telephone!!!

My setup is fully robotic and fully remote controlled of high end equipment designed for wide-field targets that are large and extremely dim deep space objects like nebula, star clusters and nearby galaxy clusters. As you may be able to tell it is a complex system of different equipment and software that all must to talk to each other perfectly throughout an evening(s) of imaging. So while the equipment does it thing outside in the cold or buggy heat, I can be cozy, warm and bug free away at home or sleeping. I even get warning alarms if something goes wrong (weather, clouds, dawn light or numerous other equipment issues) so if not automatically corrected that I can correct it remotely or physically need to check on the equipment. However failures are rare. While this project only involved less than a terabyte of data, some projects can collect 4+TB of data which must be off loaded remotely from the scope side SSD drives to a remote raid server.

Equipment

Telescope: WO FLT91 @540mm & f/5.9

Fattener: WO 68III (no reduction);

Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro (monochromatic cooled APS-C CMOS sensor @-10°C, 100gain, 1x1bin);

Filters: Chroma Hα @ 36mm & 5nm band;

Mount: TTS160 Panther Alt-Az

Field derotation: TTS rOTAtor

Guide scope: WO RC51

Guide camera: ZWO ASI290MM

Control Computer: PLL Eagle4

Focus: PLL SS2 robotic focuser

Environment: PLL ECCO-2

Dew control: Kendrick heater straps

Flat panel: Elumiglow custom made

Image processing Computer: MacBook Pro M1

Data storage: Samsung2x 2TB SSD scope side & local OWC Mercury 4x6TB Raid

Remote Power: custom made: with LiTime 100Ah LiFePO battery, Victron Blue remote shunt, inverter, and power supply/charger

Sequencing and Processing

Remote client communications: Parallels Client

Planetarium: Cartes du Ciel & SSPro 6

Sequencing. framing & imaging: N.I.N.A.

Guiding: PHD2

Plate-solving: ASTAP

Alignment & pointing & power up: TTS custom

Communications platform: ASCOM

Focus control: NINA

Environment control: NINA

Calibration frames: NINA

Stacking & Preprocessing: APP - AstroPixelProcessor

Post processing: Pixinsight & Affinity Photo2

Image Frames

Integration time: 1hr 6min (66x60sec) Hα

Calibrations: flats and bias only

Pallet: H-alpha only

This was a fairly simple project as it involved only one Hα filter over a single evening of imaging with relatively short 60 second exposures. I can image more data with different filters and add that to the original data at a later time…

Color images however can take multiple evenings, weeks or years to collect hundreds of 3-5 minute HOS narrowband filter (Hydrogen-alpha, oxygen-III, and Sulfur-II) exposures as well as wideband short exposures of LRGB (luminence, red, blue, and green wide band pass filters) using 6 different filters for the camera. Total integration times (total exposure time) can easily be 40+hours involving thousands of light and calibration frames and multiple terabytes of data. The processing of the final image can take hours to days. So why not just use a color camera (called an “OSC” one shot color) instead of a monochrome sensor? Easy: monochrome sensors are superior and much more sensitive than OSC color cameras that must use a Bayer filter and collect only ¼ of the photons per pixel that a monochrome sensor can over the same amount of exposure time. Color cameras introduce more noise in the signal and further complicate the tracking/guiding errors due to the need for longer exposures. Plus color cameras just plain suck with color calibration and getting star colors those jeweled and bright objects that they are from the blue giants to the deep red carbon stars to all the colors in between. Also false color images are very easy to compose with a monochrome sensor!

Hope you enjoy the beauty of the invisible evening sky as much as I enjoy revealing it!!

The Horsehead Nebula (IC434), 01/23/2021

I seem to always be whining about the PNW weather but dam! It has quite literally been five months since the last time I was able to image. For two nights in a row the clouds cleared just long enough for me to set up my equipment before the they would roll back in and I had to tear it all down again. Then, on the third night there was a clear window for four whole hours. I jumped on it, and being a stubborn SOB paid off. I was finally able to play with the new fancy-ass telescope mount my wife bought me for Christmas, it was awesome! I’m pretty happy with this image even though it has less than two hours of data. Maybe someday soon I’ll be able to sink some real time into this object and truly be able to pull out some detail.

Equipment:

RASA 8

iOptron GEM45

ZWO ASI294MC-Pro

ZWO Asiair

Optolong L-eNhance filter

Details:

Location – My driveway

Bortle Class 7

51 120-second Lights

60 Darks

60 Dark flats

60 Flats

Deep Sky Stacker

Astro Pixel Processor

Lightroom

Photoshop

#astrophotography #astronomy #comos #nightphotography #space #telescope #deepsky #asi294mcpro #amateurastronomy #backyardastronomy #asiair #asiairpro #celestronrasa #celestron #ioptron #ioptrongem45 #astropixelprocessor #optolong #telescope #astronomyphotography #deepskyobject #zwo #longexposurephotography #ic434 #horseheadnebula

A star-formation region in the Milky Way NGC 7380 in the constellation Cepheus, sometimes known as the Wizard Nebula, imaged in the light of hydrogen.

Multiple exposures, 300 sec. each. GSO 8" f/8 RC OTA, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro cooled monochrome CMOS camera, SVBONY H-alpha 7nm filter, Losmandy GM811G mount, ZWO ASIAir Plus controller, auto-guided. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor and Lightroom.

Commonly called the Pleiades or Seven Sisters, M45 is an open star cluster. It contains over a thousand stars that are loosely bound by gravity, but it is visually dominated by a handful of its brightest members.

The nearly straight, blue-white wisps are streams of large dust particles. As the cloud moves toward Merope, its smaller dust particles are slowed down by the star’s radiation pressure more than the larger particles are. The large dust particles continue on toward the star while the smaller particles are left behind.

The Pleiades cluster has been observed since ancient times, so it has no known discoverer. However, Galileo Galilei, the Italian scientist best known for discovering the largest moons of Jupiter and championing a heliocentric model of the solar system, was the first to observe the Pleiades through a telescope. M45 is located an average distance of 445 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

Equipment Used

Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 81 APO

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at gain 101, temperature -10C

Filter: ZWO UV/IR Cut filter

Focal reducer: William Optics 0.8x 2.00"

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290MM Mini guidecam

Guide Scope: William Optics 50mm

Stacked from:

Lights 19 at 300s, gain 101, temp -10C

Darks 30 at 300s, gain 101, temp -10C

Flats 30 at 150ms, gain 101, temp -10C

DarkFlats 30 at 150ms, gain 101 temp -10C

Bortle 4 sky.

Stacked in AstroPixelProcessor and adjusted in Photoshop CS4 and Topaz DeNoise AI

NGC 6946 is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy with a small bright nucleus, whose location in the sky straddles the boundary between the northern constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus. Its distance from Earth is about 25.2 million light-years

It gets its name, Fireworks Galaxy because of the number of Supernova explosions that have been reported in the galaxy. In the last century alone, at least 10 supernovae have been detected in the galaxy. N.A.S.A.

It is also known as a Starburst Galaxy galaxy due to the number of new stars being created.

I have taken images of this galaxy before, but this time I have worked on sharpening up the collimation, adjusted the back-focus and opened up the image train (by replacing the 50mm M42 spacer with an M48 spacer) to reduce vignetting. This has not just helped the image camera it has also improved the view for the guide camera, resulting in better tracking.

~~~~~

Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus 256G

Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C

Filter: Optolong L-Pro filter

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam

Guide via: ZWO OAG

Stacked from:

Lights 85 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Darks 30 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Flats 30 at 1.1 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Dark Flats 30 at 1.1 seconds gain 101 temp -10C

Bortle 4 sky.

Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.

Processed in PixInsight

Added captions in Photoshop CS4

Sharpless Sh2-10 is an emission nebula located in the constellation of Scorpius. It’s very rarely imaged despite being, so to speak, in plain sight between two of the most popular targets in Scorpio-The Lobster (aka The War and Peace ) Nebula and The Cat’s Paw Nebula. It is quite faint but presents interesting structure even when imaged with a small telescope.

This image was constructed with four hours of Ha data acquired with a Sharpstar Z4. 2 hours of colour data was acquired with a William Optics RedCat51. Ha and RGB data was stacked in AstroPixelProcessor. and the stacked images were registered and aligned in APP.

The registered and aligned images were cropped and processed in PixInsight

after gradient extraction with the SetiAstro ADBE script, the RGB image was plate solved and Spectrophotometrically Colour Calibrated.

Blur X was NOT applied on RGB- it was found to create " worms" -artefacts after stretching.

Stars were removed with StarNet ++ and the starless image was stretched with GHS.

A similar process was followed for the Ha data except Blur X was run twice, SPCC was not used (obviously)

After GHS stretching Dark Structure Enhance and Local Histogram Equalisation processes were run

starless RGB and Ha were combined using the combine Ha with RGB script

The resultant image was blurred with light deconvolution and a LRGB image was constructed using the combine LRGB script

Stars were processed using the SetiAstro star stretch script and added to the starless image with Pixelmath

IC 447, a reflection nebula in the constellation Monoceros. 3hr 25min total exposure, Explore Scientific ED102 (102mm f/7), ZWO ASI2600MC cooled color camera, processed in AstroPixelProcessor and Lightroom.

Slightly different camera settings than previously and with UV/IR filter.

Sky-Watcher Quattro 150P f/3.5

Player One Uranus-C OSC (Offset:20 / Gain:90)

UV/IR filter

75 x 140sec. subs (2hr 55mins.)

Processed in Astro Pixel Processor, GraXpert and Affinity Photo

Sky-Watcher Quattro 150P f/3.5

Player One Uranus-C OSC (Offset:10 / Gain:100)

UV/IR filter

35 x 135sec. subs (78 mins.)

Processed in Astro Pixel Processor, StarNet and Affinity Photo

About 40 million years ago in a galaxy far, far away a White Dwarf and its binary companion fought their own Star War. The result was a spectacular supernova in that galaxy which outshone even the galactic core. It will have been a spectacular event for all of the citizens of the star systems in that galaxy.

This month, the light from this explosion eventually reached here, being first seen by citizens of good old planet Earth on 14 July 2025. And ten days later by me and my C11.

You can see the supernova in my photo. It is the bright spot to the right of the core of the galaxy. You can zoom in on the picture to see the detail for yourself.

For a more technical description:

The Deer Lick galaxy, NGC 7331, is an unbarred spiral galaxy located 39.8 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.

On 14 July 2025, a supernova, named SN 2025rbs, was discovered in this galaxy. It is a type Ia supernova: which typically takes place in binary star systems, in which one of the components is a white dwarf. The white dwarf receives a flux of matter from a more massive companion star, creating an accretion disk which collapses and eventually ends up in a supernova explosion.

Shorter exposures (3 seconds and 20 seconds) did not capture the detail of the galaxy. With longer exposures (120 seconds) the glow of the galaxy burned out the supernova. I compromised with 30-second frames).

The sky clouded over after about 20 minutes so the result is not as good as the picture I got of NGC7331 last year.

~

Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C

Filter: ZWO UV/IR cut filter

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam

Guide via: ZWO OAG

Stacked from:

Lights 35 at 30 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Darks 30 at 30 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Flat 30 at 560 ms, gain 101, temp -10C

Dark Flat 30 at 560 ms, gain 101 temp -10C

Bortle 4 sky.

Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.

Processed in PixInsight

Cropped and captions added in Photoshop CS4

NGC6992 la grande dentelle du Cygne

Cette nébuleuse se trouve dans la constellation du Cygne et, comme son nom l'indique,

s'apparente à de la Dentelle avec ses filaments d'oxygène (bleu) et d'hydrogène (rouge) qui s'entrelacent.

Sony A7S astrodon + filtre deep sky + lunette Orion 80ED + réducteur 0.85

140x30s à 3200iso + 50 darks + 50 offsets + 40 flats

Traitement sous AstroPixel Processor et Pixinsight pour la réduction d'étoiles.

162x5min lights a 4 sessions RGB, 1 session Duo-Narrowand-filter

Processed in @astropixelprocessor, PS and LR

Equipment:

Camera/Telescoop: ZWO ASI533MC pro, William optics Zenithstar 73 w. adj flattner 73a,

Guide: ZWO ASI120MM mini + WO uniguide 50mm

Mount: Ioptron CEM 25p

Place: Backyard

Dentelle du Cygne

Canon 6D non defiltré, Tamron 150-600 G2 @600mm f/7.1 iso6400, 105x40s (70 minutes)

Star adventurer, AstropixelProcessor

My second try at astrophotography. Using a Nikon D800, aa Nikkor 500mm AI-P and a Celestron CGEM EQ mount. 30 seconds expositions, blended in Astro Pixel Processor.

M51 photographed from my garden in Zoetermeer, The Netherlands. Estimated SQM ±16. Approximately 4 hrs of data taken with an Explore Scientific 102ED apochromatic telescope, connected to a Nikon D600 (unmodified) dSLR. Post processing in Astropixelprocessor.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered by astronomers using the wide-field survey camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility this year in early March. Since then the new long-period comet has brightened substantially and is now sweeping across the northern constellation Corona Borealis in predawn skies.

In the new year on January 12 and at perigee, its closest to our fair planet, on February 1. The brightness of comets is notoriously unpredictable, but by then C/2022 E3 (ZTF) could become only just visible to the eye in dark night skies.

Take earlier in the morning from our backyard observatory, with and RC16” and one-shot color camera QHY 268C with an overall exposure of 1 hour.

Processed with Pixinsight / AstroPixelProcessor and Photoshop. I am still working with the final image where appear the comet and stars aligned and pin-pointed, but it's hard to get our target due to the resolution equipment (0,30"/px).

I hope you enjoy the result.

GSO Newton telescope 800 / f4 on EQ6-R-Pro

Camera ZWO ASI294MC pro, met OAG, filter :Optolong LPro

30 sep 2022, Gain 120, at -20°, 2 x 30 sec , 63 x 60 sec, 9 x 180 sec (+darks,bias, flats)

Total exposure: 1u 31 min

AstroPixelProcessor + Photoshop

Dirk Van Luyten – Molezon – France

Date: Jul. 29 - Aug. 01, 2023(GMT)

Location: Hurtado Valley, Chile

Optics: Takahashi TOA150B

Camera: ASI6200MM Pro (-10C)

Filter: Chroma SHO 3nm

Gain: 300

Exposure:

　- Panel1 (Northern Part)

　　S-ii 52x300sec.

　　Ha 59x300sec.

　　O-iii 54x300sec.

　- Panel2 (Southern Part)

　　S-ii 51x300sec.

　　Ha 54x300sec.

　　O-iii 51x300sec.

Processing: PixInsight, AstroPixelProcessor

The great globular cluster in Herculer, Messier 13 (M13.

A section of the Rho Ophiuchi Molecular Cloud Complex and the surrounding area is a colorful region visible in the summer sky in the constellation Ophiuchus. The blue-white star Rho Ophiuchi with its two smaller companion stars can be seen near the top center of the photo. The upper part of the photo is filled with blue reflection nebulae that are illuminated by the bright, bright blue stars in the region. The black snake like rivers are dark nebula made of dense interstellar dust clouds that completely blocks the transmission of light from the stars behind the cloud. The region is fertile with widely spread raw materials that will eventually coalesce via the forces of gravity into new stars in the distant future.

The lower right corner of photo contains a rare yellowish reflection nebula. Unlike the blue reflection nebula in the upper part of the photo, the lower reflection nebula is being illuminated by the giant red supergiant star Antares located in the neighboring constellation of Scorpius. The light from Antares is dominant in the red area of the visible spectrum and the particles of dust are reflecting the yellow wavelength of light that give the yellow nebula its yellowish hue. The blue-white stars in the upper part of the photo emit light in the blue end of the spectrum that gives the blue reflection nebulae a blueish hue.

Antares is about 588 times the diameter of the Sun and is about 12 times more massive. Antares is about 76,000 time more luminous than the Sun. It is in the red supergiant stage indicating that it is in the final stages of its lifespan that will end in about a million years as a catastrophic supernova explosion.

A spherically shaped globular cluster of stars M4 is located near the lower right center of the photo. It is located above the Milky Way Galaxy’s plane in the galactic halo. It is the closest of the 158 globular clusters that surround the galaxy at a distance about 56,000 light years from Earth. M4 contains about 400,000 white dwarf stars, which are considered to be some of the oldest stars in the Universe with an estimated average age of 12.2 billion years. The total mass of the cluster of about 67,000 solar masses.

Above M4 and to its right is a large red emission nebula composed mainly of ionized Hydrogen. The blue-white star at its center is stimulating the Hydrogen to glow red. This is a stellar nursery in which stars are currently forming.

The image was constructed with data taken remotely over the Internet from the iTelescope T8 astrograph ( www.itelescope.net/ )located at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. Thirty-two 5-minute exposures were taken over 5 nights in June and July of 2020 using Astrodon wideband Luminance, Red, Green, Blue, and a narrowband Hydrogen Alpha filters. The astrograph is composed of Takahshi FSQ-ED 106 mm telescope with a photographic speed of f/5 and a focal length of 530 mm. A Finger Lakes Instruments FLI 16803 Monochrome CCD camera was attached to the telescope. I controlled T8 from my home in Northern VA via the Internet.

The raw T8 data was downloaded to my PC via the Internet for processing using the image processing programs: Astro Pixel Processor (APP) ( www.astropixelprocessor.com/ ), PixInsight (PI) ( pixinsight.com/ ), and Adobe Photoshop 2020. Most of the processing was performed with APP, after which PI and Photoshop were used to make small refinements in hue, saturation, and contrast. The final full color image was about 92 MB in size.

Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (IC1396), 08/18/2020

This was a fun night and an unexpected result. I took my equipment out to my favorite dark sky location to camp and capture photons. I was looking forward to showing off my hobby to my wife and some friends who were camping as well. I got my gear setup and took my first capture, but the frame was very faint and unexciting. Kind of boring. Oh well. Everything else was going well so I decided to stick with it and see. The next day I did a quick stack and process and DAMN there was a ton of detail there after all! I did not quite get the framing right but that only means I have a reason to try this one again.

I don’t know how someone saw an elephant trunk when looking at this but hey you discover it, you get to name it I guess. It is found in the constellation of Cepheus and is about 2,400 light-years from us. The “trunk” itself is over 20 light-years long. In 2003 several very young stars where discovered in the circular cavity in the tip of the trunk. The stellar wind from these hot young stars may have carved out this hole.

Equipment:

RASA 8

CGEM-dx mount

ZWO ASI294MC-Pro

ZWO Asiair Pro

Optolong L-Pro filter

Details:

Location – Buck Creek Campground, WA

Bortle Class 3

Gain 120

40 300-second Lights

60 Darks

60 Bias

60 Flats

Astro Pixel Processor

Lightroom

Photoshop

#astrophotography #astronomy #comos #nightphotography #space #telescope #deepsky #asi294mcpro #amateurastronomy #backyardastronomy #asiair #asiairpro #rasa #celestron #astropixelprocessor #optolong #telescope #astronomyphotography #deepskyobject #zwo #longexposurephotography #IC1396 #elephanttrunknebula

A blast from the past, the very distant past. 2025kfm is a supernova in the very distant galaxy IC 4408. It took 440 million years for the light from the incredibly bright exploding star to reach us, some of which was captured through my little telescope.

10 5 minute exposures

Explore Scientific ED102 102mm f/7 apochromat refractor, Explore Scientific 1x flattener

ZWO ASI2600MC Pro cooled color CMOS camera, IDAS DTD light pollution filter

ZWO EAF autofocuser

iOptron CEM25P mount

ZWO ASIAir Pro controller

auto-guided, SVBONY SV2165 30mm f/4 guide scope, ZWO ASI120MM Mini guide camera

Processed in Astro Pixel Processor, Lightroom, Photoshop

#astrophotography #supernova #deepskyphotography

During my holidays in Pongratzen, Austria, I gathered data from M31. I used an Omegon 342 mm f/4.5 APO combined with a Nikon D800 dSLR. Processing was done in AstroPixelProcessor and Darktable. Total integration time is 2 hrs 14 minutes.

Canon 1100d fullspectrum CLS CCD; Star Adventurer Canon 40mm STM; @ f5; ISO 800 - Exp: 2h40' (16*10') with autoguider; Darks & Flats & Bias

Backyardeos + APP + PS (Astronomy Tools + Tonality Mask Panel) + LR

Siena (Italy), 26/12/2018

First attempt at this subject.. Thinking I slightly missed focus

36-300" Lights (gain75, temp -10)

10-300" Darks

IC1848 Soul Nebula.

Soul nebula IC1848, narrowband processed. The stars are forming in the soul of the Queen of Ethiopia. More specifically, in a star-forming region called Soul Nebula can be found in the constellation Cassiopeia, a constellation Greek mythology identified as the arrogant wife of a king who has long ruled the lands around the top river Nile. the Soul nebula contains several open clusters of stars, an intense radio source known as W5 and huge bubbles formed by winds from massive young stars. Located about 6,500 light-years away, the Soul Nebula spans about 100 light years.

Technical data:

Remote Observatory "FarLightTeam"

Team: Jesús M. Vargas, Bittor Zabalegui,José Esteban, Marc Valero.

Telescope: Takahashi FSQ106 ED 530mm f/5

CCDs: QSI683 wsg8

Filters: Baader Planetarium - Halpha-SII-OIII

Mount: 10Micron GM1000 HPS

Imaging Software: Voyager

Processing Software: PixInsight-AstroPixelProcessor

Imaging Data:

Captured through 12 December 2021 to 21 February 2022, ( Fregenal de la Sierra ) Badajoz, Spain.

Image composed of a Mosaic of 2 tiles:

Ha: 94x1200"

SII-OIII: 147x1200"

Darks, flats, bias

500 images of 30 seconds stacked in AstroPixelProcessor shoot with a Fuji X-T30 and the Samyang 135mm f/2 at ISO 800

M82 or the Cigar galaxy, shines brightly at infrared wavelengths and is remarkable for its star formation activity. The Cigar galaxy experiences gravitational interactions with its neighbouring galaxy, M81, causing it to have an extraordinarily high rate of star formation — a starburst.

M82 is about 12 million light years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It is five times brighter than the whole Milky Way and one hundred times brighter than our galaxy's centre.

I took this last night over about two and a half hours using a filter to block out UV and Infrared light so it only captures visible light. I will try again soon with a different filter to see if it can bring out the star creation areas in the centre.

~~~~~

Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus 256G

Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C

Filter: ZWO IR Cut filter

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam

Guide via: ZWO OAG

Stacked from:

Lights 71 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Darks 30 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Flats 30 at 1.08 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Dark Flats 30 at 1.08 seconds gain 101 temp -10C

Bortle 4 sky.

Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.

Processed in PixInsight

Added captions in Photoshop CS4

My second try at astrophotography. Using a Nikon D800, aa Nikkor 500mm AI-P and a Celestron CGEM EQ mount. 30 seconds expositions, blended in Astro Pixel Processor.